death from above
by catmagnent
Summary: A severe weather front makes a couple of super cell thunderstorms and some tornado chasers follow these storms across the states. What happened?


oa.n.: i concider this a part of "twister". i dont own any of it. as always forgive my lack of caps and quotes. my phone browser bites.

it was such a miserable week. thunderstorms across the western side of the rockies and no twisters yet. but the team allowed themselves to prepare for the storm systems that are brewing..it was all coming together as she had hoped for.

cathryn had been watching the maps all week long. it was a beautiful set up from the word go. cold dry air from the northwest, and all that warm moist air in the south...such possibilities. she leaned back in her chair and smiled. but they still had to get some extra supplies and get ready.

she sent michael and don after a list of things. batteries, toiletries, bottles of water, cereal in small boxes and medical supplies.

the guys were gone for over three hours.

they finally came back with all the stuff cathryn asked for and some pizzas and a couple of bags of burgers and fries for later.

cathryn asked sarah and amy to assemble first aid kits and make to go packs for the crews. so the pair set about making first aid kits, then making to go packs for the road crew.

it was sandwiches, chips, two boxes of cereal and a packet of dry milk and water.

they made sixty to go packs.

fourty first aid kits.

and finished off the pepperoni pizza and the last two bacon cheeseburgers with fries.

then they looked at the time and decided to sleep while they can and as long as they could. because on the road you may not get alot of sleep. they plugged in their portable coffee makers and set them for the right time to brew them their coffee.

the team crashed by nine p.m.

they awoke with a jolt around five that morning at the sound of the severe storm warning alarm going off like crazy.

the national severe storms laboratory in norman oklahoma had issued a severe thunderstorm warning for cherokee county in oklahoma and also for delaware county in oklahoma.

the team geared up and took off .

by nine that morning, the first team had reached delaware county and was already pushing into the storm. team two was just coming into cherokee county and was a mile from the main storm which was quickly becoming a supercell because it was on a straight easterly course.

and finally it happened..a tornado warning had sprung up.

it was directly ahead of team two. about a quarter mile ahead.

team one in delaware county was having the greatest luck. a multivortex twister had come down in one town and in another a beautiful stove pipe twister had swept through a farmers field.

team two finally caught up to the tornado producing storm. they stopped on a bridge overlooking the town with the tornado already on the ground. it was a dangerous f3. they caught it on videotape and documented it for their records. and continued to track this storm all the way to its end or until it joins a squall line.

it was tracking east. right towards arkansas.

cathryn felt her heart drop.

she radioed the other team and told them she was tracking a tornadic supercell right into arkansas. it was cutting through cherokee county right now. it is moving straight east at 35 mph.

she looked at which arkansas county would be hit first.

sebastian county in arkansas.

she called up a local televison station in fort smith and told them of the in coming storm. what it was capable of doing. the wind speeds ahead of this storm front, and the general size of the hail to expect.

soon the severe thunderstorm warning upgraded to a tornado watch. then twenty minutes later...tornado warning for southern part of fort smith.

cathryn and her team continued to track and monitor this damn storm until hell freezes over.

fort smith was in trouble. the wall cloud was spotted over the moffett oklahoma area and became stationary for a short time to allow tornado production.

cathryn loaded her video camera and began to tape the birth of a tornado and follow it til it died out.

then it happened.

it was like this tornado came right out of hell itself.

a thunderous f5 twister was on the make. what came through fort smith was a nasty f4. it was still tracking east.

it would hit the town of barling and then the towns of charleston, caulksville and paris.

those poor people.

cathryn looked around at what was damaged and what was to come.

while the storm was moving east with cathryns team 1 moving right behind it, michael and don in team 2 were moving easterly as well. they had come out of deleware county and into washington county and into a town called gravette.

the guys in team two watched as a rope tornado dropped right down onto the open field of a cotton farm.

they tracked it until cathryn radioed them and said there was another supercell storm just outside coal hill and clarksville, and it was already causing some major damage with a nasty f4 twister and some dangerous cloud to ground lightening.

cathryn was now shaking and wide eyed. she knew what was about to happen, and it wasnt good at all.

the two supercells were on a collision course of epic proportions.

she radioed ahead to warn radio and news stations of the impending danger.

the news was quickly spread and citizens quickly took cover underground as they were instructed to do.

the first supercell that had come out of oklahoma was now less than a mile from the one near clarksville.

right at high noon it happened. the storms joined.

hell was about to unfurl itself quickly.

the storms began to cycle and picked up speed. now still moving straight east at now 45 mph. it was barreling right towards nuclear 1 in russellville, and it didnt do anything except drop some rain. it did however wait until it was over atkins and approaching center ridge and then the biggest tornado in arkansas history came right out of hell itself when it roared right out of the clouds...an f6 twister.

hell has just developed right out of a monsterous supercell storm.

cathryn began taping it once more. she watched in horror as the twister grew in speed and strength in windspeed.

it was zipping through trees and houses like a hot knife through butter. it was quickly moving towards woolly hollow state park and then it would hit greenbrier or if it moved northeast it would hit heber springs, pleasant plains , bradford or newport.

she would see just what happens with this damned hell spawned storm.

that ungodly f6 twister remained on the ground for 100 mi. it finally down graded in windspeeds from 567mph to 269 mph. it was a nasty f4 tornado and it was moving right into jonesboro and then it would hit paragould and finally the towns of rector and piggott.

cathryn was watching the tornado slowly slow down and gradually become smaller and smaller until it roped out.

she was grateful the storm had finally roped out just as it had buzzed through the town of piggott.

twistertwistertwister

it had come down to the new re evaluation of the storm system now.

it had joined up with a squall line that had formed east of independance missouri.

and the monster supercell joined up on the tail end of the squall line moving east northeast at 35 mph.

it was now tracking through gideon missouri.

and it was soon coming through charelston missouri. cathryn had noted the storms were cycling and not doing anything. rain occasionally but no severe weather yet.

they were now heading into illinois.

after they cut through the northeastern part of kentucky, they knew the storms had finished cycling and they had the all too familiar look about them. that look of preparing to drop a nast twister.

the first town that was to be hit was vienna illinois.

tornado warnings went out quickly. and people took cover and some were not underground as advised.

then the tornado sirens went off and the wall cloud was spotted on the city limits coming into the town. and a huge stovepipe twister formed and moved right through the heart of vienna.

then the town of harrisburg was being hammered by a severe thunderstorm with 2 inch hailstones and 40mph wind gusts.

as the line moved east northeast, it was noted that a category 1 hurricane had just made landfall at north carolina. and it was pulling this squall line of severe thunderstorms right towards it.

but the only thing that would decrease the severeity of the squall line was this artic cold front trying to push into the upper mideast.

cathryn and her now combined teams were following this squall line and praying for this artic cold front to blast apart this line of nasty storms.

the hurricane was moving up the east coast line and was now hammering norfolk virginia, and moving into delaware and maryland.

the squall line got blasted by the artic cold front right in indiana. and it began to fall apart quickly. all the moisture was gone and it could do nothing except snow or rain.

the hurricane that had pounded maryland was now moving out to sea heading towards nova scotia or greenland. which ever it hit first.

the danger was over and the weather had been documented from beginning to end. it was all over.

cathryn, michael, and don breathed a sigh of relief and began to look for a place to rest, get gas for their vehicles, and something to eat. and also a place to record their data collected from their following that storm system all across the eastern half of the u.s.

as they rested, ate, showered and slept, they recorded their data and watched their videos. one of the team members remarked " its all beautiful until you have one take the house off the foundation."

cathryn typed that remark onto the video for her records. and then she labeled it and put it in the video case marked "tornado case videos 2001-present"

and her collection keeps on growing. the state of arkansas showed her video of the f6 twister that ravaged the northeastern part of the state. and it was also recorded into state history for severe weather occurances in arkansas history.

a.n.: like it? dont like it? let me know either way. thanx.


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